Helen Monsch

Monsch was head of the food and nutrition department at Cornell University from 1925 to 1947.

Helen Monsch
Helen Monsch, from the 1927 yearbook of Cornell University
Born	January 28, 1881 Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
Died	July 31, 1959 (age 78) Winter Park, Florida, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Home economist, college professor

Monsch was born in Louisville, Kentucky, one of the ten children of Henry J. Monsch and Mary Elizabeth Braymen Monsch. She trained as a teacher in Kentucky; in 1904, she graduated from Kansas Agricultural College with a degree in home economics. She earned a second bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1909, and a master's degree in nutrition from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1916.

 

Monsch taught in nutrition programs at Simmons College, Iowa State College, and the public schools of Gary, Indiana. She did research on infant feedings at Iowa University Children's Hospital, Rush Medical College, the University of Illinois College of Medicine, and other programs.

Monsch began working at Cornell University in 1918, first teaching in the summer extension program. She was head of the food and nutrition department at Cornell from 1925 to 1947. She also directed health classes in the public schools of Ithaca, wrote newspaper articles on cooking, and gave public lectures on child nutrition.

Monsch wrote and narrated a short educational film about nutrition, For Health and Happiness (1941). After she retired from Cornell in 1947, she donated over 300 books to the university's home economics library.

• Feeding Babies and Their Families (1943, with Marguerite Kaechele Harper)

Monsch retired to Winter Park, Florida, where at least two of her sisters also lived. She died there in 1959, at the age of 78.